Realization
by Kate Christie
Summary: Fun, flirty "Murder He Wrote" post-ep. "She is wearing a dress. And not just any dress—no, some red and white clingy, flowy, dotty number that cinches at her waist and flares out in a little skirt, and oh God it's a little skirt, and her hair is down and her makeup is softer and she's switched out her jewelry and since when does Beckett wear bangles anyway?"


**Realization**

And she can cook.

She can cook. She's standing in his kitchen, three pots simmering, steam now billowing up from the pasta pot as she lifts the lid to check the water's slow progress toward boiling.

She had made him stop at the market on the way home from the station, refusing for even one second to consider ordering in.

"I'm making dinner for a mobster—lucky for you, Italian is one of my specialties."

ONE of her specialties.

And then the chopping and dicing and grating and stirring had begun, and he's still standing dumbly, an hour later, staring across the island, too mesmerized at the sight of this glorious woman who he loves more than life itself making herself at home in his kitchen to even remember he should offer to help. At least he docked his iPhone and put on Sinatra.

Why would he assume she didn't know her way around a kitchen? Just because she's a badass detective who eats take-out eight nights a week and never keeps actual food in her refrigerator, much less a full set of pots and pans in her kitchen, doesn't mean she isn't a closet Ina Garten. Martha Stewart? Oh, god, definitely not Martha. He shudders at the thought of what she might do to him if she had heard that thought out loud. Giada De Laurentiis? That might fit a bit better… He's smiling to himself, watching her freshly pony-tailed hair slip over her shoulder as she transfers freshly chopped basil into a small bowl with the back of her chef's knife.

"Hey, do you have a potato masher?"

Rick snaps out of his momentary Food Network reverie and stands, opens a drawer full of gadgets and rifles through.

"I think so. But you didn't get potatoes?" His eyebrow rises, thoroughly perplexed.

"It's for the Bolognese sauce, Castle."

"Oh, of course." Right. And he calls himself a cook? He is obviously outmanned at his own Fisher and Paykel.

Grated carrots, onion and celery had been sautéed before ground beef, veal and pork all went into his biggest cast iron Dutch oven for browning. And then she had started adding liquids, one at a time, every twenty minutes or so. Milk, white wine ("Castle, do not bring me a hundred dollar bottle of wine to make the meat sauce,") and apparently, next would come the crushed tomatoes, up to bat in a large measuring cup beside the stove.

On his third drawer of aimless digging, she finally reaches over his forearm and plucks a long-handled waffle-looking, metal-grate thingy from under his fingers. Oh, and her chest is pressed against his shoulder. Does she not know that she cannot expect him to be useful if she does things like this while wearing halter tops with flirty little necklaces and those insane white pants that obviously do NOT allow for any significant underwear underneath…

"Perfect."

Geez, that's a potato masher? Looks more like a medieval torture device. He makes a mental note to use one as a murder weapon if he ever writes about another restaurant.

She sets upon the meat, smashing it to smithereens, and then calmly adds the tomatoes, mixes them in, and taps her utensils gently before laying them on the spoon rest. There is such a lightness about her here—touching and flirting and invading his personal space are all things they have done before, but it's been continuous now for more than a day, and his body is on full alert. Her hip bumps his as she backs away from the stove, as if to make sure she has his attention, and there's that sparkle in her eyes that takes his breath away.

"Think you can keep an eye on this while I go change clothes? Just give it a stir every few minutes while it's reducing."

"Sure." Slightly strangled, maybe a little high-pitched, but hopefully conveying enthusiasm.

Turning to give him a smile as she walks to the stairs, she has him distracted enough to make him run into his own island—hard. The girly scream is halfway from his brain to his lips when he stops himself, turns the wince into a smile, just in case she's still looking.

Oh good lord. His brain is reducing to mush with the image of her changing clothes. Good that she's given him a job… Otherwise, he would be helping her change clothes, and this dinner does not deserve to be ruined, even in the name of naked countertop sex. Suddenly, the phrase "What are we doing for dinner?" has a whole new meaning…

"Why don't you find some red to go with the pasta, too?"

"Sure."

God, so articulate today. This is what she does to him. He gives a swirl to the sauce, turns the heat down just a smidge and ducks down to the cellar for the wine. Hmm. Chianti? Nah, too cliché. Sangiovese? Probably trying too hard. Looking into a darker corner, he remembers his research trip to Napa. Definitely worthy of Beckett's masterpiece and his mobster Italian neighbor.

Pulling two bottles of the Stag's Leap, he dusts them with the hem of his shirt and hopes desperately he can keep it together long enough to get information out of Vinny.

Ten sweating, stirring, wine-decanting minutes later, just when he is about to abandon his post at the stove in favor of finishing off a very different flavor of sauce in his bedroom with a certain semi-naked detective, the sound of heels echoes down the stairs. Glancing up, a wave of dizziness hits, likely a result of every drop of blood in his brain rushing to other, more insistent regions.

She is wearing a dress.

And not just any dress—no, some red and white clingy, flowy, dotty number that cinches at her waist and flares out in a little skirt, and _oh God_ it's a _little_ skirt, and her hair is down and her makeup is softer and she's switched out her jewelry and since when does _Beckett_ wear _bangles_ anyway?

She looks so utterly, astoundingly _female_ as she walks into his kitchen with that sweet little smile… Wait a minute, that isn't a sweet smile, entirely—she knows exactly what she is doing to him. That smile is triumphant.

Thinking he should say something before she gets the idea she's left him speechless just by wearing a sundress, he tries for a bit of a leer, some sarcasm, maybe. But it all gets a bit stuck on the way out because she flips her hair just as she walks past a sunbeam and the light picks up the glints of summer her suspension and his constant prodding for fun put in it.

"W… wow."

Well, so much for eloquence.

"You like it?"

Still that smile—happy, and warm, and eager to please.

As she steps into his space, his arms come around her, hands find that tiny waist, the curve of her hips. The only thought in his head is: "I would like to rip it off of you and ravish you on my kitchen island." But his brain's brief pause in conveying the words to his lips works in his favor, and the doorbell sounds.

Playing gracious host as she plates their meal, schmoozing and chatting, he can't help the flit of his eyes across the room to her. The ballet of her movements in his kitchen catches him unaware.

And then it hits him. This woman who he's been watching, studying, cataloguing for more than four years is showing a side of herself he's never seen before. Smiling. Laughing. Holding hands. Cooking. Wearing dresses. Playing. Conspiring with instead of condescending to him.

When their guest leaves in a huff, they collect their wine and move to the living room, and even though she's dodging his advances in favor of solving a case, it's _their_ case. The one neither of them has to chase—they are doing this for fun. And it _is_ fun. More fun than he's had with her on a case maybe ever.

The banter escalates, and he finds himself wrapped around her; caught up in the moment, he heaves her against him with more force than he would ever have thought to use on her, for fear of getting clocked for manhandling. But that breathy little gasp, and that look of unadulterated lust in her eye as her body slams into his—she likes this.

Filing it away, letting his subconscious ponder the implications, he gets the phone call to the boys out of the way. When he clicks off, she's pulling him upstairs, flicking switches, leaving darkness behind them. Watching her quirk a grin as she backs into his room, some of the loose threads begin to twine together in his mind.

Kate Beckett is all woman—sexy, badass, brilliant, take-charge, in control—always has been. But here, this weekend, with him, she's also letting him see that she's feminine, sweet, vulnerable, even a little bit insecure. And he can't be sure if he hasn't seen all this before because she never allowed him to, or because she hasn't let herself _be_ any of these things since long before she met him.

Either way, she's let him in, and it makes his heart swell, makes him want to reassure her, let her know that he's so grateful to have her, to have all the parts of her, even the ones she's just rediscovering—especially those. That she would find parts of herself she lost a decade ago just by being with him—the thought floors him. That she would show him those parts is absolutely humbling.

A wave washes over him, and even though he hasn't said it since they've really been together, he just feels it flowing out of his pores, and he has to give voice to it. Taking her wine, setting it down with his, he finds her hands, laces their fingers together.

"Kate, I'm not saying this to put pressure on you or make you feel uncomfortable, and I know you probably don't want to hear it, but I just can't help myself when I feel like this—the words are going to come out no matter what I do and maybe if I warn you, you won't freak out or—"

"Castle."

He stops short, zeroes in on her eyes as her fingers curl at the angle of his jaw, can't quite read the look she's giving him—indulgent, maybe? And then she opens her lips and stops his heart.

"I love you, too."

Oh, he's known for months, has seen it in her eyes, heard it in her whispered nothings under the covers, felt it in the way she holds his hand. And he has been telling himself that the words themselves mean so much less than all the rest, but now the somersault happening in his chest tells him just how much he's ached to hear the sound of them spilling from her lips.

She's given him everything.

His words have left him.

No matter. He uses his lips and hands and body to show her just how much this means.

Hours later, warm and sated and curled together under covers, he remembers that he still hasn't told her—hasn't said the words. Whispering them into her skin, skimming his lips along the curve of her sleeping shoulder, he knows that even if she hasn't heard, she'll be here when he says them again in the morning.

Because he has finally realized that all this summer's revelations, the words and the actions and the emotions, the facets of one another that have been shared and accepted, these aren't some final paragraph cementing _her_ character sketch. They are simply prologue to a much longer, much greater story—theirs.


End file.
